


midnight

by starkreactor



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Gen, Minor Sylvain Jose Gautier/Claude von Riegan, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), it's shippy if u squint and im squinting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24032854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkreactor/pseuds/starkreactor
Summary: Here under the gaze of no one but the gentle moon can Claude release all that rests inside him. He lets the burning sting consume his eyes until the stars are streaks of wet light between his lashes. He lets his grip on the reins tighten until the leather creaks under his gloved fingers. He clenches his thighs against the saddle until his muscles scream for release and even then he holds his grip for minutes longer.
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier & Claude von Riegan, Sylvain Jose Gautier/Claude von Riegan
Kudos: 22





	midnight

**Author's Note:**

> a friend gave me the prompt of claude and animal crossing night time music and this is the result!! think of this as a mixture of claude introspection and claudevain b support (ish) where we pretend that c-support was when they found out only dimitri and felix separate their rooms (we'll say deer/lion schedules didn't overlap much but when sylvain switched to gd, they end up seeing each other a lot).

_Ready…_

_Set…_

“Claude!”

The called man jerks violently at the sudden shout, his grip of the wyvern saddle reins tightening as he struggles to straighten his bearings. Mild irritation simmers in his eyes but he closes them and takes in a deep, fresh-rain scented breath, turning to smile at the bright-pink-haired girl racing toward him.

“What’s up, Hilda? Didn’t expect to see you up this late.”

Hilda scoffs, bouncing on her feet once she’s standing next to Claude’s wyvern. “I’ve been looking _everywhere_ for you! I should have guessed you’d pull a Marianne and spend your time with animals.”

Claude raises an eyebrow but says no more. Hilda’s eyes glaze over the white-scaled beast he’s sat upon before she turns back to face him with a soft smile. “Any reason why you’re prepping for a flight tonight?”

“No reason.” The Alliance leader shrugs his weighted shoulders then pats his wyvern’s thick hide. “Figured I’d give her a ride since it’s been a few days and she’s still healing from an injury during that last battle.” Hilda nods. “Any reason why you’re looking for me?”

“Well, _I’m_ not personally but I told the professor and Lorenz I’d get you for them! I really don’t know why they’re asking for you but…” she cocks her head and looks up at the twinkling stars winking down at them. The moon highlights her soft cheeks and Claude smiles to himself as he thinks back to a time before the war, a moment when the entire Golden Deer class snuck out late at night and gazed at the stars until Raphael’s snores got loud enough that they would surely find themselves caught if they didn’t get back in their dorms. Cherry blossom pink eyes lock with verdant green and Hilda smiles. “I’ll let them know you’re busy.”

“I haven’t lifted off yet; I can spare a few minutes,” starts Claude, already poised to jump off the saddle and work his way back toward the monastery proper.

Hilda violently shakes her head. “No, no! Don’t worry about it. Enjoy your flight for me, okay?”

Claude hums. “You could join me. I know you’re still forever working on your flying skills.” His smile morphs into a smirk. “I’ve seen you practicing with Hapi.”

“Oh, hush you.” Hilda laughs though, her voice as gentle as the night’s breeze. “Have fun, Claude.”

He nods and watches Hilda leave until she’s no more than a speck turning around a corner back toward the lecture hall. A heavy sigh billows from Claude’s parted lips and he rubs gloved hands down his drawn face. His lip quivers, eyes stinging with a burn he hasn’t felt in the five years since he thought he lost Byleth. Even now with someone he cares for so deeply back at his side supporting his every move toward his dream of unification, Claude finds himself overwhelmed with his responsibilities and the trust everyone in the Alliance, and now the old Kingdom, imparts on him.

While loss finds itself a common enough player in Claude’s life these days, trust is still a hard won bet. Since birth, Claude learned to distrust and disbelieve more often than not. After every assassination attempt, every murmured slur and disgusted glance, he closed in on himself, building a wall between his heart and every person in his path until the wall began to shape itself into him. He knows it’s there; he crafted it with meticulous detail over the years, molded and painted every brick by hand, constructed it high enough that not even the most-outlandish or suspicious could see above it. With each haughtily petty argument between Alliance leaders, his wall grew thicker as more attempted to pierce through it. No one has gotten close but Byleth and perhaps Lorenz, if Claude is willing to admit that the man’s insight into politics and hard-earned trust in Claude’s leadership and tactics means more than what’s on the surface.

Another sigh parts Claude’s lips, shaky during the inhale yet stable with the exhale. He closes his eyes, mentally restarts his countdown, and yelps a short _ha!_ into the damp night for his wyvern. Leaning forward as thick, pale wings push off air, Claude tightens his grip on the leather reins and situates his breeches-clad bottom further back on the saddle. His booted feet slip into metal stirrups and he opens his eyes as the wyvern pushes herself off her perch and launches them into the sky amid the starry night canvas. Here under the gaze of no one but the gentle moon can Claude release all that rests inside him. He lets the burning sting consume his eyes until the stars are streaks of wet light between his lashes. He lets his grip on the reins tighten until the leather creaks under his gloved fingers. He clenches his thighs against the saddle until his muscles scream for release and even then he holds his grip for minutes longer.

The wyvern loops around, hanging Claude upside down for a moment as she flips and in that moment, Claude feels completely weightless. The world falls off his shoulders and he’s but a boy, remembering himself in the _kakh-e_ gardens looking up at his older siblings flying overhead and wishing he could do the same once he’s old enough to get lessons. He remembers riding lessons, oh-so-eager to learn important terminology as it would give him a step up when eventually practicing his wyvern flying. Funnily enough, most of his flying training began once he arrived in Fódlan, a good decade after his interests in flying began, though in the five years since his arrival he’s most certainly trained himself up as a master.

Pulling at the reins to even out his flight path, Claude sits up straighter and casts his gaze down below to the monastery. They’ve cleaned it up quite a bit; Raphael and Felix have definitely been going at the rubble the past few weeks. At the thought of the Faerghus-native, Claude’s grip tightens once more. He can’t even imagine how Felix and Sylvain must be feeling after battling their former classmates--no, not just classmates, as on that front it was still difficult for Claude to lift his bow and notch his arrow in the direction of a familiar face, _friends_. Family even amongst the nobles of the Blue Lions house. A breath lodges itself in Claude’s throat as his thoughts turn toward the Dimitri he witnessed on the battlefield and he coughs harshly. He’d heard the rumors of course but those rumors paled in comparison to.seeing that man literally tear through soldiers on his way to Edelgard with the tenacity of a feral beast.

The wyvern suddenly swoops down and Claude’s stomach climbs up his throat in combination with the sudden movement and the images racing through his head. He calms his thoughts and redirects his white-scaled beauty further above the cathedral walls. Shiver-inducing wind howls in his ears, tainted with the screams of those murdered in the wake of Edelgard’s revenge. Ghosts aren’t real no matter what Lysithea believes and Claude doesn’t particularly tie himself up with the antics of the Goddess no matter his minor crest imbuing him with occasional healing when using his Hero’s Relic, but his imagination works just as well as any’s. Another howl rips goosebumps across Claude’s bare neck, his body shivering against his will as he continues to settle into the cold nature of Fódlan.

Moonlight peaks between fluffy night-gray clouds and paints streaks across the blue sky. Claude flies across the moonscape, staring at the yellow sphere that bathes him in a light not seen but when time dictates one’s eyes to close. He’s somewhat pleased sleep has been evading him as it gives him moments like these, a time to be nothing more than a boy and his wyvern. No war, no death, no wall, nothing. Piercing green eyes flicker down toward the courtyard, gaze as sharp as the tip of his metal arrows. He can spot movement below, most likely Byleth and Lorenz making their way back to their quarters if not stragglers from the fallen Kingdom struggling to make their home in such foreign territory. Claude snorts to himself; he understands them far more than they could guess.

After a few more twirls and flips, Claude directs his wyvern back toward the cathedral where the remaining wyverns reside, all in various states of sleep themselves. The energy burned through his flying settles warmly in his chest, pushing him toward the cliffside until he’s dangling between awake and asleep. A yawn pulls his lips apart and he chuckles to himself through it, patting his wyvern’s tough flank as he watches her curl up against herself and flop her tail over her long snout. Claude presses a kiss to the closest scale and waltzes from the wyvern holdings, eyes dry as if the nightly escapade hadn’t included the escape of his innermost affections.

The walk back is silent. Silent enough for the memory of battle cries and angered screams to carry their weight on his shoulders again. Each step impresses his responsibilities back on him until he’s sagging at his door, the skin under his dulled eyes bruised from losing a slow fight against exhaustion. A door down the hall clicks open and he quickly turns, frozen until he watches a yawning Sylvain peep his head out the crack and sleepily blink at him through blurred hazel eyes.

“Lorenz was looking for you earlier.”

“I know,” Claude hums, crossing his arms as he leans his shoulder against the wall. “You should go back to sleep.”

Sylvain shrugs. He presses the heel of his palms into his eyes. “You didn’t wake me up if that’s what’s got you telling me to get more shuteye.” The redhead yawns again. “I was already up.”

“Uh huh,” muses Claude, grinning when Sylvain pulls one hand away from his face to send the shorter man a playful glare. “Why were you already up then?”

“Why were _you_?”

Claude wonders if his wind-swept hair makes it obvious that despite Lorenz’s venture through Garreg Mach in hopes of finding Claude, Claude never actually met up with him. “Had to stretch my wings.”

Sylvain grins, all beatific with white teeth and flushed cheeks. “‘Course you did.” He runs a hand through mussed hair and shrugs. “As for myself, I got caught up thinking about...things.”

‘Things’ is very loaded. Claude understands without further explanation. “Should I leave you to it then?”

Something akin to panic flickers over Sylvain’s face and Claude is reminded that he is not the only one who built an unclimbable wall around his heart. “Ah,” Sylvain rubs at the back of his neck and chuckles self-deprecatingly. “Yeah, I guess.” He motions back to his door. “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow. I think you and I are tending to the horses tomorrow.”

“We are.”

An oddly comforting silence simmers between them, Sylvain yet to turn back into his room and Claude equally yet to do the same. They both speak at the same time to break it.

“Claude,”

“Sylvain,”

A hoarse laugh. “You first.”

Claude unfurls his arms and casts his gaze sideways at the floor. “I don’t mind staying up for a few more minutes.” Sylvain makes a noise and Claude quickly turns toward him with a hope that he doesn’t look as flustered as the heart inside his chest feels. “The moon’s high and I’m not gonna lie, I still feel a little restless in my thoughts.”

“Me too.”

Another silence permeates the air before Claude pushes himself off the wall and walks back down the hall toward the exit. Sylvain watches him with his eyes before he shuts his door and follows him out the corridor. This walk is just as silent as the walk back to the dormitory, yet nothing weighs itself down on Claude’s shoulders this time around. Neither man says a word as they step side-by-side across paved stones and dew-wet grass. Claude’s thoughts bounce between the meetings he has with Byleth (and, most likely, Lorenz) in the morning and the urge to fill their silence with _something_ other than nature’s midnight warbling. In the end, Claude keeps his mouth shut and simply lets the energy speak for itself. They both have far too much on their minds to attempt a meaningful conversation tonight but maybe that silence is enough talk. Maybe silence is enough recognition of their towering walls and that fragile trust built from the ashes of youth and forged on a graveyard neither wants to bury the other in.

Sylvain pauses at the lake. Claude steps up beside him and follows his mellow gaze into the water where the moon reflects against the still surface. The breeze blows stronger here, equally rippling through the water and the thin clothes dressing the two men. Claude holds back another shiver despite being far more dressed than Sylvain yet the redhead stands still, unaffected by the chilling wind. The wyvern rider smiles to himself; this is but another reminder of how different they are, how different _he_ is from the people of Fódlan yet they unite under him and Byleth—another outsider looking in—in hopes to survive an unwarranted war.

Claude wants to open his mouth to say thanks to Sylvain for following him and trusting him since he can’t wake everyone up and say thanks now. Yet again, he’s reminded of the power of silence and wonders if chatterbox Sylvain is keeping his words inside as well as a silent thanks for Claude taking this walk with him. He smiles to himself, twines his hands behind his back, and looks up with reenergized virescent eyes, counting the stars each time they wink down at him. _One, two, three, four, five_ ... _sixty-nine_ , _sevent—_ The wind blows again but a body blocks the most of it from reaching Claude, who takes a deep breath, smiling at the warm, rich scent of Sylvain’s sillily specific body wash (who knows how he got a hand on it midst this war), and steps just a bit closer into the welcoming silence.

**Author's Note:**

>  _kakh-e_ : persian for palace


End file.
